Names: Actors Robert Vaughn,
Sonja Smits, Robin Greer, Arthur Corber, Michelle Scarabelli, and (Oh,
yeah!) a "Special Appearance by SYBIL DANNING". Adapted from a story by
Richard Rothstein, teleplay by Robert J. Avrech. Directed by David Wickes.

Set up: We open on a closed door. Medical monitor ‘beeping’ is heard.
The door opens and out emerges one Dr. Hamilton (Robert Vaughn), clad in
surgical garb. A nurse pulls up his mask—now that the audience has had time
to recognize the episode’s big guest star—and he prepares to operate. This
is being observed by a small cluster of med students in an adjacent viewing
room. One of these is a hot blonde, complete with feathered ‘80s hair. I
assume we’ll be seeing more of her—in every sense—later on.

Hamilton proves to be one of your standard Portentous Surgeons with a God
Complex* so often seen in horror movies, dating back at least as far as Bela
Lugosi Dr. Volmann in 1934’s The Raven. "Flesh is illusion," he
announces to the onlookers. "Michelangelo worked his art in stone. I am a
sculptor, too." If I follow my Socrates correctly, this means Michelangelo
believed stone to be an illusion. Who knew?

[*Please note, though, that this is entirely and completely different
from the OrchestraConductor with a God Complex seen two
entire episodes ago.]

As this scene progresses, we cut away occasionally to an obliquely seen
woman. She is filmed in such a way that it is all but trumpeted that we
never see her face. She is seen rising from her bed, taking a shower (with
no nudity—a Hitchhiker first!!), painting her nails, and finally
donning a face-obscuring broad brim hat before leaving her apartment.

Meanwhile, back in the operating theater, Hamilton continues his spiel.
Meanwhile, the camera tracks in on Attractive Blonde Onlooker (there’s
a surprise), who is vamping it up, presumably for Hamilton’s benefit.
Hamilton describes himself as a "modern day conjurer, improving on God’s
work. I can do it better than Him." Gee, I wonder if Hamilton will finish up
OK at the end of the show.

Hamilton’s continuing blathering amounts to his being able to peer past
any visage and the illusions it projects. "When I look, all masks are
stripped away," he avers. "I see through each and every face." (Gee, will he
fall victim to his own hubris? WILL HE?) After much more of this, we
cut to the exterior of the building, which sports signage revealing to be
the Hamilton Medical Center. There we find…The Hitchhiker!

Hitchhiker Intro: "Dr. Christopher Hamilton is a plastic surgeon with
ambition and a sharp scalpel. He sees a face, and he wants to change it. But
unless he looks deeper, there’s [sic] some things he’s not going to
see. Like a dangerous smile, even on the most perfect face." (Wow!)

[A classic Hitchhiker intro! Why would Hamilton have to ‘look deeper’ to
see ‘a dangerous smile’? Aren’t smiles, you know, generally detectable on a
face’s surface? And why would a dangerous smile be so much more unexpected
on a perfect face? Are pretty people less likely to be dangerous? Less
likely to smile? Or just less likely to smile dangerously?]

Back to our narrative. Mystery Woman enters the Hamilton Center to a
blare of suspense music. As she strolls down the hall, with the camera at
her back, passersby (including nurses!!) pointedly look upon her face with
alarm. However, always working under the assumption that the viewer is a
complete moron, they also toss in a young kid. He, needless to say, points
and gleefully yells, "Mommy, look at that lady’s face!"

Hamilton meets with the woman, and the big surprise is that she’s a
former he that has had a presumably botched "full gender change." This is
realized for us by putting a putty ersatz guy’s jaw and nose on an actress,
along with an equally bogus Adam’s apple.

This barely passes muster the first time around. The second time, as ‘he’
is being examined in a brightly lit room, it just looks ridiculous. "Doctor,
there’s a pretty woman inside of me," ‘Miss’ Russell declares. "I want you
to help her come out." Needless to say, Hamilton takes the case. (During the
examination, Hamilton pauses to leer at a sexy nurse. He’s a skirt hound,
get it?) By the way, they spend a fair amount of time establishing Russell
to be a professional make-up person.

Later, Hamilton is stopped by Dr. Gold, who introduces himself as a new
medical resident in "[your] department." (Uhm, Hamilton only has a
"department" in the "Hamilton Medical Center"?) Gold wants to register his
concerns about Hamilton’s specialty, which he labels to be mere "vanity
makeovers." Actually, Hamilton is currently working on a transgender
patient—what could be more hipply ‘progressive’ than that?

Gold, in contrast, explains that he’s more interested in "real problems,"
like burn cases. The guy has a point, but sneering at the work of the
founder of the institution he’s currently employed in
seems…counterintuitive. "If you want to make the world a better place, why
don’t you join the Peace Corps?" Hamilton sneers. Master surgeon, perhaps.
Master of the witty riposte…. perhaps not. Methinks his tongue is not as
sharp as his scalpel. (OK, that line isn’t much better. However, I was
wearing a ruffled shirt and velvet jacket, and flouncing a perfumed
handkerchief, when I typed it.)

Pretty Blond Resident (PBR) accosts Hamilton next. "Tell me," she
inquires. "What do you see?" He invites her into his office to
further discuss the topic. Cut to her naked on his office couch, on her
tummy (allowing for the obligatory butt shot), and holding a fan. (?)
Hamilton is just finishing getting dressed, and one can only be thankful
that we were spared seeing Vaughn acting out his character’s amorous
activities. Hell, I’m relieved we don’t have to see him with his shirt off.

He answers the phone. Here the camera rather artlessly pans over to PBR,
who rises in such a way as to give us a good long gander at her breasts, but
with a strategically placed chair blocking her, uh, lower half. Vaughn
speaks to Gloria, who is apparently the wife he’s cheating on. "My darling,"
he simpers. "Do I ever lie to you?"

Ding! Ding! It’s time forKen’s Official Hitchhiker Twist
Ending Guess: At about seven and a half minutes in, with about
twenty minutes left, I Predict: Hamilton’s messes up Russell’s surgery, or
does something so that his patient feels betrayed. Russell then helps
another woman Hamilton has betrayed—Gloria, presumably, although Ensman is
another candidate—by disguising the woman’s face with her professional
makeup skills. Hamilton fails to *Gasp* see past this ‘mask,’ this
‘illusion,’ and pays the price.

If I had to guess, I’d say it was Gloria’s money that paid for the
Hamilton Medical Center, and that without her he’d be ruined. (This despite
the fact that Hamilton is famous enough as a surgeon to the stars to have
been featured in People Magazine.) I say that because, a) that’s as cliché
an idea as I could think of, and b) this is an episode of The Hitchhiker.

We then are treated to several more shots of PBR’s goodies. I can only
hope that actress Michele Scarabelli got a good hunk of change for doing
this part (although I doubt it, as this was never a big budgeted show),
because it didn’t do her career much good. Anyhoo, here she asks Hamilton
what is next for them. "I think you ought to run along," he says, handing
over her uniform. As he does so, he casts an eye at the nametag. "Dr., er,
‘Ensman.’"

Get it? He’s a pig who slept with her and didn’t even know her name!
Well, he certainly deserves any horrible fate that is shortly due to be
dealt him! I mean, sure, one could argue that Ensman is hardly any more
sympathetic in this. After all, she jumped into the sack (or the couch) with
him seconds after they first met, and presumably knew he was married, or
anyway didn’t care much about it one way or the other. And she is a doctor,
so it’s pushing it a bit to paint her as a total naïf. Still, that’s the
bargain the show presents its starlets: Flash your ta-tas for the audience,
and in return any moral complicity in the show’s plot will be glossed over.

Cut to Russell hosting a candlelit dinner, pouring two glasses of
Champagne as treacly romantic music plays on the soundtrack. She holds one
side of a conversation through this, with no replies evident. Thus, we are
less than shocked when the camera pans over to the other side of the table
and *Gasp* she is shown to be talking to an empty chair. Despite
this, the empty chair is greeted with a Suspense Music Sting.

Hamilton is walking around outside the Center with Gloria—while a very
Sybil Danning-esque ultra tight, cleavage-bearing dress—when Dr. Gold comes
running up again. Gloria, we learn, is herself a movie star. (And, I guess,
Hamilton’s lover, not his wife.) "I’ve seen all your movies," a goggling
Gold gushes. "Even the early ones."

So…he works in a facility best known for catering to Hollywood types, but
is stupid enough to hint at the age of one of the center’s celebrity
patients. This is typically clumsy Hitchhiker scriptwriting, as it leaves
unexplained why Gold, a Dedicated Humanitarian™, would seek a residency at a
facelift mill in the first place, and how he secured the presumably much
sought after position in the second.

Gold tells Hamilton that Russell wants a consult with him. Hamilton
brusquely tells Gold to handle it. (Which, to be fair, is the sort of work
Gold wants to do, right?) Hamilton then gets a page and heads off to find a
phone. Gold then escorts Gloria to Hamilton’s car, where he is speaking on
the car phone. "I’ve got to have the blood analysis before Friday," he
declares, because that’s the sort of thing you’d expect a doctor to say.
Admittedly, a "Stat!" would have been nice. You can’t have everything, I
guess.

We cut to Hamilton doing lines of coke while wearing a black silk dragon
kimono. Glad they aren’t overdoing the clichés here. Gloria emerges in red
lingerie, accompanied by wailing sax music. (See note re: clichés.) Given
that she’s played by Sybil Danning, I think we can safely predict a second
boobie scene. She pulls aside her translucent robe, and runs her hands over
her matching red bra and panties. Ms. Danning had certainly kept herself in
shape, I’ll give her that much.

Apparently somebody saw 9 ½ Weeks, because she kneels down and
starts feeding Hamilton a strawberry from a waiting bowl. The sensuousness
of this act is somewhat compromised by the fact, however, that it features
Robert Vaughn. As the music reaches hilarious heights undreamed of in your
average late nite Skinemax movie, Hamilton produces a scalpel and uses it to
cut Gloria’s bra straps. Then, amazingly, we don’t get a full view of Ms.
Danning’s boobs, although we do get to see Hamilton snorting a line of coke
off her more than amble exposed upper breast. (!)

Oops, spoke too soon. There goes the bra. Hello, boys. Haven’t seen you
guys since, oh, the last time I rented a Sybil Danning movie. (Admittedly,
that was probably a while ago.) Vaughn nuzzles them, and I have to admit,
this might well be the most horrifying episode of the program I’ve seen so
far. Luckily, though, we do cut away before things go much further.

Cut to Gold meeting with Russell. He brings her the pre-surgery release
she has to sign. She asks where Hamilton is, as he had said he’d be here.
"He’s, uh, out on an emergency," Gold lamely replies. We also learn that
Hamilton might have significantly overestimated to her the chances that the
procedure will be a success. (That seems pretty dumb, since it puts his
reputation on the line, but hey, that’s the kind of show this is.) I think
we can safely guess that neophyte Gold will screw the surgery up, leading to
the previously alluded to revenge scenario.

Russell gets a looong monologue detailing her tragic life as a
transsexual, blah blah. I mean, how affecting. I can tell, because of the
somber music that bludgeons us during this. I don’t know who the music
director was for this episode, but I’m assuming he was half deaf. I have to
admit, watching an episode of a program this uniformly dumb straining to
produce a socially relevant Emmy Clip™ moment is pretty amusing in its own
right. And, hey, I’ll sure we’ll move on to a shower scene soon enough.

We cut to Gloria and Hamilton entangled in bed together, amidst the
rubble of their partying. (Luckily, he’s still got his kimono on, and
through a rent in it we can even see he’s wearing a T-shirt underneath.) The
phone rings, and he groggily reaches for it. "Of course I know what time it
is," he barks. He doesn’t, though, and swears after grabbing onto his
bedside clock.

We cut a Hamilton, patently the worse for wear (and I mean Foster Brooks
patently), entering surgery. His patient, of course, is Russell the
Tragic Transsexual. Hamilton is sweating profusely and pauses to look upon
his shaking hands, just so we ‘get’ it. Gee, where is this going? The
surgical team, including Gold, casts each other Significant Glances, but
Hamilton demands a scalpel, and surgery proceeds.

I don’t know if it counts as being ‘suspenseful’ or not, but no matter
how cheap a device, watching a drunken surgeon aiming a shaking scalpel at
someone’s face is pretty unpleasant. The surgical team winces as the (at
this point thankfully unseen) knife cuts in, and then we see the bloody
instrument dropped to the floor.

Cut to Russell’s room, with her made up like the Invisible Man for the
obligatory Removing of the Bandages scene. Gold is attending, and explains
that Hamilton is preparing to leave the country for Paris the next day.
(Yeah, that’s a good sign.) Needless to say, when the bandages are removed,
it turns out that Hamilton has butchered Russell’s face. We don’t see the
result, but Russell shrieks as she looks into a mirror.

[In other words, get ready for a Phantom of the Opera-esque unmasking
from the latest babe Hamilton picks up in Paris.]

Cut to Hamilton at the airport. He pauses to look over a slinky
stewardess as, again, Smoky Sax Music erupts on the soundtrack. I swear, if
this is supposed to be Russell in disguise, one day after having her
bandages removed (wouldn’t there still be a lot of facial bruising, etc.?),
I’m going to plotz. That would be epically moronic even for this show.

However, Hamilton follows after her, and the two exchange their own
Significant Glances, so I’m afraid this is, in fact, where things are going.
How did she get her face in order so quickly? How did she manage to get
herself placed as a stewardess on a pre-scheduled international air flight,
in less than 24 hours? Egad! Seriously, is that where things are
heading?

Hamilton loses her, and shrugs and goes to the hospitality bar.
Meanwhile, unnoticed, the stewardess sits at the bar. At this point you can
see she has roughly the same enlarged nose and chin—softened a bit, of
course—that Russell was earlier sporting, so Hamilton’s presumed inability
to in fact penetrate her ‘mask’ seem pretty astoundingly stupid.

I also have to say that, since it appears Russell will be her own
instrument of revenge, this makes the prolonged nude scene by Michele
Scarabelli, i.e., Dr. Ensman, even more embarrassing than I thought. It
means that her ‘character’ had literally no plot purpose whatsoever, and
that she took the job knowing that all it really entailed was her flashing
her breasts and ass for the camera. (As for Ms. Danning’s, well, that sort
of thing was her career, after all.)

Hamilton notices the Stewardess, and smiles. You know, I get that he’s
supposed to be a narcissistic asshole, but really, he’s fleeing the
country after butchering a patient’s face. His entire gaudy career is on
the line. Wouldn’t he be a bit more concerned about that, for a moment or
two at least?

She joins him, introduces herself as Tess, and the Dance continues. I
have to say, it’s an amazing makeup artist who can create in less than one
day a disguise that holds up in broad daylight under the practiced eye of a
trained surgeon. He begins to introduce himself, and she says she knows who
he is, referencing the People article again. She then vamps it up,
asking, "So, doctor, what would you do to my face." See, she’s inviting him
to really give her a looking-over. Ha ha, much delicious word-eating will be
forced upon the good doctor soon, eh?

He asks for her number, and she responds by playing footsie under the table.
Just then, they call his flight, and he reluctantly breaks off. Unseen by
him, however, she slips his ticket into her folded magazine. OK, so at least
she hasn’t supposedly gotten onto his flight. That makes this marginally
less ridiculous.

He goes to the check-in counter, but of course doesn’t have his ticket.
He then looks back, and there is Tess the Stewardess, waving his ticket. He
goes to retrieve it, and she purrs, "You know, there are other flights."
C’mon, already. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t employ to some extent the
fast forward button at this point in things. I must admit, by now I was
pretty impatient to just move this thing on to its pre-ordained ending.

So she invites him to her place, and he naturally agrees. (Russell’s
revenge plot doesn’t exactly seem foolproof, but hey, when the script is on
your side, amazing things can happen.) "Her place" proves to be an empty,
open and completely unsecured passenger plane (!!!!!), so I guess
airport security used to be really bad. He begins unbuttoning her
blouse, as we go for a rare Hitchhiker three-fer. Not to beat a dead horse,
but it seems to me a pretty inept plastic surgeon who can’t recognize a
formally male chest molded into a female one (especially when it’s the chest
of a former patient of his), but again, let’s just go with the flow and see
the end of it all.

Actually, actress Sonja Smits (much to the frustration of the show’s
fans, no doubt) is spared baring her talents. Instead, she keeps him from
touching her face, and pushes him down in a seat. "Your face," he whispers.
"You’re beautiful." Really, could even the most half-assed viewer have not
seen where this is going? "It’s the makeup," she replies.

Warning: Read no further if you do not wish to
learn the super-shock surprise twist ending
of this amazing episode of The Hitchhiker!!!

Then Tess reaches up (after a cut-away to disguise when
the put the appliance on her face) to her cheek and pulls off a Mission:
Impossible mask appliance, revealing a face that…is bad, but not that bad.
Especially since, again, a lot of the bruising and scarring and stuff is
still to wear off. It’s not good—in fact, she’d be getting a crapload of
lawsuit money—but we’re not talking Dr. Phibes here either.

Still, she has a scalpel and slashes up his face in return. Blood is
artfully (well, not really) spattered over the nearby passenger window.

Cut to Hamilton, sitting in profile to the camera. (Gee,
where is this going?) He face looks fine. He is repeating his "flesh is an
illusion" spiel, and the camera pans around to the other side of his face,
and IT’S ALL MESSED UP! AIIIEEE!!!! The camera zooms in on the damage, so
that we can see it’s not an entirely convincing makeup job.

We then cut outside, where awaits…The Hitchhiker!

The Hitchhiker Wraps Things Up: "Dr. Hamilton took an oath to heal
and to care. But when all you care about is feeling good, there’s [sic]
some things you’re going to miss. Like Vengeance working out its own kind of
Justice." (Wow!)

Afterthoughts:

Some of you (those not already conversant with my impressively sloppy
writing) might wonder why I’d leave in all my musings that proved to be
false. After all, they don’t exactly burnish my reputation as a savant.

First, and most simply, it seems a bit like cheating to make guesses in
order to mock a show’s predictability, and then erase them from the public
record when I am proven wrong. However, there’s a more personally satisfying
rationale, too. One reason The Hitchhiker program continues to merit
attention here is that, even when I’m wrong in forecasting where the episode
is going, it’s generally because, inveterate Hitchhiker mocker than I
am, I’m still often guilty of giving the show too much credit.

Take this episode. As I’ve noted previously, The Hitchhiker shows
are generally shaggy dog stories of the hoariest order. In this case,
Wikipedia sums it up perfectly: "In its original sense, a shaggy-dog
story is an extremely long-winded tale featuring extensive narration of
typically irrelevant incidents, usually resulting in a pointless or absurd
punchline [sic]."

If that doesn’t perfectly sum up The Hitchhiker in one sentence,
well, I’d like to see it done better.

This episode is an apt case in point. In my forecast of the show’s
resolution, I predicted "Russell then helps another woman Hamilton has
betrayed—Gloria, presumably, although Ensman is another candidate—by
disguising the woman’s face with her professional makeup skills."

As shown, my guess was inaccurate. Russell instead performed her arts
upon her own visage, with neither Gloria nor Ensman being involved. The
reason I was wrong, however, was not because the show proved smarter
than I expected, and thus turned the joke back on me. Instead, and quite
astoundingly (after all, few if any humans have spent as much time deriding
this show as I have, much less bought dozens of episodes on DVD in order to
continue doing so in the future), I was wrong because, as indicated above, I
afforded the show too much respect.

When you got down to it, here’s the gist of this particular episode: a
plastic surgeon messes up a patient’s face; she gets mad, and messes up his
face in return. That’s not a lot to fill up a half hour program (and since
this was on cable, it is quite nearly a half hour, since there
weren’t commercial breaks).

That why the shaggy dog aspect is necessary. Now, there’s shaggy dog, and
there’s Shaggy Dog. This proves the later, and, as Wikipedia
suggests, the narrative is marked by "extensive narration of typically
irrelevant incidents." The reason I assumed that Gloria or Ensman would
figure into the climax was that, as veteran a critic of the show as I am, I
still couldn’t help assuming that they wouldn’t have introduced these
characters in the first place for absolutely no reason.

And, to be fair, they didn’t. It’s just that while I naively assumed they
would have some sort of, you know, actual plot utility. Instead, they
were there for the apparently equally vital, if perhaps less artistically
compelling, reason of providing some naked breasts for us to stare.
(Please remember this program was first telecast in the early days of
premium cable and home video, and well before the Internet was a household
word, when nudity was by today’s standard almost unimaginatively difficult
to come by.)

Of course, the insertion of Gloria and Dr. Ensman into things also eats
up time. As I noted, he messes up her face / she messes up his face
doesn’t by itself fill up 27 minutes of screentime. However, I really think
the ‘breasts’ explanation remains the primary motivation here.

Think how clunky the episode’s sequence of events is. Hamilton doesn’t
perform the operation until the show is more than 2/3rds over, and by the
time Russell removes her bandages, we’re down to about the last five
minutes. That compresses the amount of time Russell has to affect her
revenge plot to a ludicrous extent, and moreover means there’s not real
reason for Hamilton to be on his guard.

A seemingly more satisfying plot structure would have involved Hamilton
botching the operation in the first third of the show. During the middle
third he could have removed her bandages, revealed the horrors beneath, and
fled the country (or at least the city) after she violently attacked him and
vowed revenge while being dragged off by security. Months later, in some
obscure corner of the globe, she could have tracked him down and pulled her
little disguise number.

Sure, that’s just as dumb, boring and pointless, but it’s at least more
streamlined.

Meanwhile, I have to say, Hamilton getting his face slashed up doesn’t
seem like much of a kicker. Apparently noticing this, they introduce the
whole rigmarole of him opining about his godlike ability to peer beneath the
surface of one’s face to glean what lies beneath. In the end, this proves a
woefully lame attempt to inject a note or irony or, well, something,
to his otherwise rather flaccid comeuppance. The last scene, meanwhile,
seems to imply that Hamilton has been driven mad by the whole thing. This
also comes off as but a feeble contrivance meant to lend his fate some
dramatic impact.

Immortal Dialogue: Not so much.

Gratuitous Naked Boobies? I’ll say!

Loads of ‘Adult’ Language? A little.

Whatever Happened To…:

Scripter Robert J. Avrech went on to Jabootu
immortality by penning the script for the hilarious Witness knock-offA Stranger Among Us.

Meanwhile, the ‘story’ was provided by
Richard Rothstein, who co-wrote Universal Soldier, and solely penned the
screenplay for the TV pilot The Bates Motel.

Robert Vaughn (Dr. Hamilton) won pop culture
immortality as superspy Napoleon Solo on TV’s The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
Although he never had as popular role again, he has remained busy in
both TV appearances and in movies, and continues to be busy today. His
genre appearances have been myriad, starting with his titular role in
Roger Corman’s Teenage Cave Man. Amusingly, he played a doomed
gunfighter in the classic Western The Magnificent Seven, and then
recreated the same role in the sci-fi knock-off Battle Beyond the
Stars. Other genre movie credits include The Minds of Mr. Soames,
Demon Seed, Starship Invasions, The Lucifer Complex, Hanger 18, Superman
III and CHUD II: Bud the Chud.

Sybil Danning (Gloria), or at least her
breasts, need no introduction to any male who grew up in the ‘80s and
frequented the cheesier fare to be found at his local video store. Ms.
Danning first hit screen in European sexploitation flicks like The
Long Swift Sword of Siegfried. After much such fare, she appeared
transitioned to more mainstream European films, before moving to the
States in the late ‘70s. Especially Jabootu-ish credits include
appearances in Meteor, The Concorde: Airport ’79, Battle Beyond the
Stars (maybe her most famous role, opposite Robert Vaughn), The
Seven Magnificent Gladiators (in which she recreated her earlier
role in Battle Beyond the Stars, perhaps being inspired by Mr. Vaughn’s
example), Chained Heat, Hercules, Malibu Express, Howling II: Your
Sister is a Werewolf, Lady Chatterley II, The Phantom Empire, Reform
School Girls, The Tomb, Warrior Queen and Amazon Women on the
Moon. (Now my fingers hurt. And here's the amazing thing: I've
yet to review a single one of those movies!) Ms. Danning retired from
acting in the late ‘80s.

Michele Scarabelli (Dr. Ensman) first
appeared, like many young actresses in the ‘80s, in a small role in a
slasher film. In her case, it was as an uncredited dancer in Prom
Night. She was also one of two actresses in this episode, along with
Sonja Smits, who guest starred on Airwolf. She has remained
active as an actress, mostly in television appearances. Her most famous
role, perhaps, remains Susan Francisco, the wife of the alien detective
in TV’s Alien Nation. Ms. Scarabelli was last seen in these pages
as the female second banana in the atrocious ‘erotic thriller’ Deadbolt.
Supergeeks might remember her as Ensign Jenna D’Sora, who briefly
pursued an obviously doomed romantic relationship with Data on an
episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Sonja Smits (Nina Russell) began her career
starring in various television and theatrical movie project. The most
prominent of these, by far, was her starring role David Cronenberg’s
Videodrome (1983). On the other end of the spectrum she also starred
in the atrocious 1981 horror flick The Pit, a film destined to
appear at this site sometime in the future. Sadly, her days as a lead
actress were numbered. Ms. Smits continues to work, mostly in television
roles. Her TV genre credits include appearances in TekWars, The Ray
Bradbury Theater and The New Outer Limits, as well as a
recurring role on the syndicated program Odyssey 5.

Robin Greer (?) began her career with a small
part (Baker Girl) in Satan’s Cheerleaders. Her next role was a
larger one in MST3K subject Angel’s Brigade, directed by
Jabootu fave Greydon Clark. Megasuccess was thus assured. She also
appeared on such TV shows as Werewolf, Freddy’s Nightmares, Quantum
Leap, They Came from Outer Space (yeesh, I don’t even remember that
one). Ms. Greer appears to have retired in the early ‘90s.

Arthur Corber (Dr. Gold, I guess? They don’t
do exact credits on these episodes) is remained semi-busy over the years
with small episodic TV appearances, including such genre shows as The
Sentinel, The X-Files, Night Man, Millennium and Dead Like Me.